Music - Okra (1992)

This is what happens when you take a guy who wants to rock and give him a few minutes before Badminton class.

Young composers, please note: You can't predict when the Muse will descend. You have to be ready to give in to her Call. Also, be ready to sacrifice for your art; I think I was tardy to the gym because I was tweakin' the mix.

Why "Okra"? I dunno. As you'll soon discover, it doesn't really matter.

The only reason that I put this here is that I recently played it for Chad, who told me that he used to have a copy of this on a tape in his car and he'd listen to it a lot. I think that's funny.

instrumentation

Interestingly, none of the stuff I used for this belonged to me.

I played Jeff's bass through Lee's guitar effects processor. Distorted bass is always a crowd-pleaser. I also delivered my fine spoken word performance through that effects processor, which is why it's so meaty.

The funky drummin' is courtesy of Steve's beastly Yamaha V50, which was surprisingly up to the challenge. Steve once commented that he'd never heard his keyboard sound like it did when I was droppin' tha beats. I took that as a compliment, one that still makes me smile.

Recorded on Lee's crappy four-track to a crappy Type I cassette at normal speed, which happens to be playable years later in my crappy four-track. There's hiss, bad fidelity, and your standard lack of production values inherent in dorm room four-track recording. (Pretend you're a music critic and think of it as "raw" and "edgy.")

This was originally in E, but it came out in E flat. I'm sure that just accentuates the introspective character of the piece.

lyrics

I made these up as I recorded based on things I saw lying around the room. Except for the bit about the pipe wrench.

angry frito in my mouth
brain saying maybe
owning a pipe wrench

my dream


necessity of clip
a shaved anthology
rippling lamppost

my hand

so let's hear it

If you've read this far, you've wasted enough time that another minute won't hurt. Probably.

This file is a MP3. If you don't know what that is, go to Winamp's web site and follow your nose.

mp3 file Okra (1,001 KB, 1:04 length)